Idea about balancing Monarchy vs Democracy

[player1]

As we all know, government without trade bonus are never good in peacetime, and are good in war only if you strt getting lots of war warriness.

So what about making unit upkeep cots in Republic and Democracy to be 2 (instead of 1).

That way if your army is too much large, monarchy (and comm.) could be usefull peace option too.

Anybody tried that.

Does it work.
Is it maybe too much.

How could AI handle that?

[Barchan]

Well, one of the ways Civ used to balance it out was that when democratic units (republic and democracy) left their cities, they generated unhappy citizens (1 for republic, 2 for democracy). However, if they were garrisoned in the city, everyone was happy.

That seemed to be a fairly reasonable arrangement, since democratic governments are usually less likely to send troops abroad than autocratic ones are. I think it'd be a useful balancing tool in CivIII if democratic governments could only have X number of military units outside their borders at any time or suffer 1 unhappy citizen in each city. The penalty could become increasingly severe with more units (i.e. 2X = 2 citizens, 3X = 3 citizens and so on). Also, X could be modified based on the difficulty level.

This would allow democracies to build a large standing army to deter aggression and to defend their borders, but would impose a penalty for wars of conquest and aggression. Personally, I think this would be a good thing, as I think there are not enough penalties to waging offensive war with democratic governments. It’s just not that easy for a democracy to send a huge army across the world to conquer or raze someone else’s country. Just ask president Bush. You know, if he was King (or commissar) and didn’t have to answer to congress or country, I’d imagine that Iraq would be just another colonial possession by now....

[vmxa1]

I did not mind the troops being in another area causing unhappiness, but unhappiness was triggered when they were out of the city tile sitting on the next one. It was also tripped by the engineer out working on a tile?? If it was just outside of the 21 tiles, maybe. I thought i should have been outside of the country and engneers should not have counted. I was very happy that they dropped it in civ3. Also glad they dropped the each city pays the support for it units. That forced me to set the home city on troops that moved.
Actually the country is not all that unhappy with troops outside of the USA, if they are only deterents such as those in Germany. The families are not happy, by the citizens are not all that worked up. I think it depends are what they are suppose to be doing.

[player1]

Of course the new problem is that you can have HUGE army without any consequences.

And if your wars are relativly short (or you have many luxuries), there is no need for Communism or Monarchy at all.

But if you make upkeep cost of 2gp per unit in rep. and dem. then it could be balanced in the right way.


Republic and Democracy would still be superior if you don't have HUGE army.
But if your army is realy huge, then those other govenment would be better choice.

[alexman]

It's a good idea because Communism is still too weak, but I'm afraid that it would unbalance the Religious trait, which is already one of the best.

For most typical games, I think it would also delay the use of Republic until more than 2-3 luxuries are available, effectively removing the choice between Monarchy and Republic in the ancient age.

If I were to change something, I would rather boost Communism than weaken Republic/Democracy.

[player1]

Hmm...
I never go to Republic unit I get 2-3 luxuries.

Otherwise I would waste too much on luxurty tax (10-30%).

Unfortunately I don't see other way of boosting Communism.

Exept by making Rep. & Dem. less good for lagre military nations.

At least if somebody would test this.
Since I don't have time to make it myself.



P.S.
The core of problem:
Rep. & Demo: huge trade boost
Mon. & Com: less units to upkeep

Now probelm is that unit upkeep becomes less and less problem as time passes since cities start getting more population, merketplaces and banks.

At the end, several free untis bonus becomes minor.

[vmxa1]

One way to improve commie is to have a structure that was unique and could only be used if you were in that form of government. So if you switched it did nothing. I suspect that the game engine would need a tweak. The structure could grant less corruption or some other useful thing as long as you stayed in that form of government. The police station would have been my choice for that, but it could be call something else.

[Harovan]

What about a mixed approach?

Give Republic and Democracy 1 unit per town, 2 units per city and 3 units per metropolis for free. That's for defenders. Then increase upkeep to 2 gold per unit. May be for Democracy even 3 per unit, because soon after it the cities start to grow over size 12.

[player1]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
What about a mixed approach?

Give Republic and Democracy 1 unit per town, 2 units per city and 3 units per metropolis for free. That's for defenders. Then increase upkeep to 2 gold per unit. May be for Democracy even 3 per unit, because soon after it the cities start to grow over size 12.

This could be good aproach.

[Barchan]

Well, FWIW, I still think that unhappiness is the key, not cost. True, you could argue that a volunteer army is more expensive to pay than a conscript one, but many democracies today still have compulsive military service anyway. Besides, there's still the cost of developing and building the machines and munitions, and they're relatively fixed for similar types of weapons. Let's face it, modern armor costs a bundle to build, regardless of whether you're elected or not.

But unhappiness would be the key. I know, vmxa1, that in previous games the unhappiness could be extraordinarily harsh. I think in CivI if you were simply outside the city you suffered the penalty, whereas in CivII at least they let you roam the 21-tile city limits. I think that if they extended that to your Civ's borders in CivIII, they'd strike the right balance between flexible defense and deterring imperialism.

And yes, the old "home city" system of support was a flaming pain, I'm glad it's gone and am *not* suggesting it be brought back. Still, I think democratic governments should only be allowed to send a limited number of units (say 10-20?) outside their borders before additional units cause unhappiness. Want to wage a huge war of conquest? Fine, switch to monarchy or communism. Want to engage in peaceful trade and growth? Go republic or democracy. But, frankly, if you can't have both in monarchy or communism, why should you be able to do so in republic or democracy?

[vmxa1]

Civ2 when in demo the citizens did not like it if even your engineer was out working a square in the next town, now that is harsh. I can't send help to another town, ouch.

[Harovan]

Good suggestions, Barchan. But I think, this thread is not about what would be nice to have, but rather what really can be done, given the power the editor offers us. Unfortunately, we have no possibilities to cause selective unhappiness, based on unit location. So even though it would be more realistic to get the Civ2 system back (without the home city concept), we probably have to stick to upkeep cost to cause changes in gameplay.

Here's my second, refined proposal. The mentioned one (2 upkeep in republic, 3 in democracy in return for free units per city) would probably in an unfair manner favor republic. This is why I would like to refine it.

Republic: 0 units per town, 1 unit per city and metropolis for free, 2 gold upkeep otherwise.
Democracy: 1 unit per town, 2 units per city and metropolis for free, 3 gold upkeep otherwise.

For example, let's assume:

• an empire of 20 core or near core cities (FP built) and 10 marginal, more corrupt cities. Let the core cities till hospitals have 7-12 pop ("city"), and the marginal cities 1-6 ("town"). After hospitals, let the core have 13+ ("metropolis") and the marginals finally have built aqueducts ("cities").
• we have 4 units per settlement. That is 1 worker, 1 defender and 2 extra units. These contain extra defenders for border cities, defenders for resources, bombardement units and a quick response team. This is what I'd call a small, adequate army without being able to warmonger a lot. Peace time.
• we increase our units by 50% (+60 units, all military), to wage an offensive war.

Current system, Republic and Democracy:

Total units	120
- 10 x 0	-0
- 20 x 0	-0
- 0 x 0	-0
Units to upkeep	120
Peace time upkeep	120 gpt
50% more units	60 gpt
War time upkeep	180 gpt

Case 1: Republic, pre hospitals:

Total units	120
- 10 x 0	-0
- 20 x 1	-20
- 0 x 1	-0
Units to upkeep	100
Peace time upkeep	200 gpt
50% more units	120 gpt
War time upkeep	320 gpt

Case 2: Republic, post hospitals:

Total units	120
- 0 x 0	-0
- 10 x 1	-10
- 20 x 1	-20
Units to upkeep	90
Peace time upkeep	180 gpt
50% more units	120 gpt
War time upkeep	300 gpt

Case 3: Democracy, pre hospitals:

Total units	120
- 10 x 1	-10
- 20 x 2	-40
- 0 x 2	-0
Units to upkeep	70
Peace time upkeep	210 gpt
50% more units	180 gpt
War time upkeep	390 gpt

Case 4: Democracy, post hospitals:

Total units	120
- 0 x 1	-0
- 10 x 2	-20
- 20 x 2	-40
Units to upkeep	60
Peace time upkeep	180 gpt
50% more units	180 gpt
War time upkeep	360 gpt

Analysis:

Upkeep in peace time has been increased by about 50-60%, but is almost even in all cases. That is affordable, but hurts the trade ability and makes one think about every extra unit he builds.

War time upkeep has been about doubled, less in republic, more in democracy. Especially rampant it is now in democracy, pre hospitals. Could make it impossible to make a cavalry rush under democracy.

Massive wars are almost unaffordable pre hospitals in republic and democracy, because the economy isn't yet so strong to pay the upkeep for long. After hospitals, war gets slightly cheaper, but other factors gain importance, like MPPs, draft unhappiness and metropolis defense bonuses.

Conclusion:

It's harder to build military, especially a large one, at least in Republic and Democracy. The AI will handle this well, because it always listens the moronic military advisor ("Until we get more gold, we can't afford...").

What do you think? And who would help to test this?

[nbarclay]

I think people who want Monarchy and Communism to be more competitve in general are missing a key strategic factor that exists in the current design. The fact that Democracy and Republic are clearly superior during peacetime makes it valuable to stay in them as much as possible. But you can't stay in them and fight long, protracted wars (unless you do so on a purely defensive basis). Thus, the very fact that the governments aren't equally good forces some interesting strategic choices onto the player.

I also have no problem with the idea of Republics and Democracies adopting a philosophy of "manifest destiny" on a global scale if they have the firepower to back it up. (Ask any Native American how inherently peaceful democracies are.) But with the war weariness mechanism, you do have to have the firepower to back it up, or you'll have to call off the war halfway through or change governments due to war weariness. That adds a dimension to war planning that would not exist if one of the goals were not to stay in Republic/Democracy.

As for the idea of increasing military upkeep costs, I think it's a horrible idea until around the industrial era. As far as I'm concerned, in a republic's early years, even one gpt per unit is enough to discourage large standing armies and doing a lot of pre-building for a war thirty or forty turns in the future. But I do think that from the industrial era on, increasing the cost to two would make sense to offset the compounding effect of marketplaces and banks on representative governments' extra gold. (Unfortunately, I'm guessing the editor doesn't support something that selective.)

I'll grant that, the fact that I like a style of play that's mostly peaceful with occasional quick, decisive wars gives me a certain amount of bias. That's the style of play that fits the current rules best. (Of course the fact that it works so well probably has a lot to do with why I like it so much.) But I also think it's realistic that that style of play should be what works best; purely peaceful nations don't get big enough to be world powers, while too much fighting can drain a nation pretty seriously.

A couple last thoughts:

(1) The idea of having to change governments out of Republic/Democracy to fight effectively gets a bit ridiculous given the length of anarchy for non-religious civs. A lot of my wars last ten turns or less, so the anarchy on the two ends of a war could add up to as long as the war itself! (Of course I'll grant that when I'm in attack mode, I'll often fight multiple wars back to back, but that's not always the case.)

(2) Democracy simply doesn't offer enough advantages over Republic to justify higher unit upkeep costs. My impression is that war weariness alone provides enough reason for more than a few players to regard Republic as preferable. And that's in spite of the fact that as a significantly more modern development which requires not one but two optional techs to get to, Democracy certainly ought to be clearly superior overall (albeit not in every nuance).

Nathan

[nbarclay]

If the editor supports it, one idea worth trying might be to drop the war weariness thresholds about 20% for Republic and Democracy on standard maps, and maybe even more on smaller maps. On big maps, it's a lot harder to swallow a major power whole before war weariness kicks in, so war weariness plays a much bigger role in strategic planning. Adjusting the war weariness threshold on standard and smaller maps could provide a similar effect on them if Firaxis by some chance provided sufficient granularity.

Nathan

[player1]

The point is that if you want large military and world conquest you should stay in Monarchy & Communism.

Even in peace time (since you'll have too much big military to support it in Republic).

And if you want peace gold and science that you should be in Republic and wage defensive war (since you big military won't be an option).


To Sir Ralph:
Maybe it's better to have both Rep. & Den. with upkeep cost of 2 per unit, since many people already prefer Republic becasue of lower war wariness.

And give them also free 1/2/3 units (town/city/metro).
That's needed in oreder to make early Repbulic a possbility.

[Barchan]

Originally posted by player1
The point is that if you want large military and world conquest you should stay in Monarchy & Communism.

Even in peace time (since you'll have too much big military to support it in Republic).

And if you want peace gold and science that you should be in Republic and wage defensive war (since you big military won't be an option).

Yes, but isn't it the large standing military that discourages the AI (and soon to be humans as well) from taking liberties with your civilization in the first place? If you're "weak", the AI will bully you into giving away concessions or simply declare war on you. Generally, when in a republic or democracy you have a smaller army to begin with. Making it more expensive will only make matters worse.

I know *we* can’t modify happiness. But there are those who can, and you never can tell when they might choose to implement a good idea. Therefore, I have to stick to my guns when I say that leveling factor for balancing growth bonuses and conquest ability should be increased extraterritorial unhappiness, and not standing military cost.

Perhaps, in the final analysis, there’s not much that can be done about this in SP games. If you make republic or democracy too expensive, the AI will just soldier on in endless monarchy anyway. Even if it doesn’t, the religious trait will become way too powerful as the need to jump back and forth between governments becomes ever greater.

Anyway, I think in that in MP this will resolve itself, since just about the only way you can wage extended warfare in republic or democracy (especially democracy) is to be fat with luxuries. Even if you’ve got all the right structures in your cities, you really need maximum luxuries to fully combat war weariness for a long time. When those 5th through 8th luxuries get to market, you can really calm the people down. The AI can’t grasp this, but human players can and will isolate trading partners, bombard roads from luxuries cut off cities to induce civil disorder and the eventual government shift or collapse. Frankly, I envision a lot of people playing “democratic spoilers” by simply declaring war on a democracy just to watch it slowly unravel as war weariness drags it down.

[player1]

Here is the test BIC (v1.1).
It's same as original BIC with following changes:

Republic & Democracy have following changes: all units have upkeep cost doubled (2gp per unit), but you get 2 free units per town, 3 free units per city and 4 free units per metropolis.

I suggest testing it with Religious civ, in order to easily compare different govenments.

Post commnents in this thread.


EDIT:
Free support per town/city/metrop. is changed to 2/3/4

Testing BIC file can be found on second page of this thread.

[BillChin]

I think Monarchy, Republic and Democracy are already fairly well-balanced. Communism needs a boost. The tweak I suggest is to increase unit support for Communism. Maybe 3 per town, 6 per city, 12 per metroplex. That way a Commie, could field a huge low tech conscript army which is historically accurate.

I vote against the idea of free units for Republic or Democracy and/or the idea of 2 gold per unit. As I said, I see the problem with Communism being too weak, especially because it is the last tech available for government.
- Bill

[player1]

People,
Lets test this BIC flie and then comment the results.
(is it good idea or not)

Thanks.

.

.

P.S.
Monarchy vs Repuclic is only balanced in ancient age, after that Republic is clearly better choice (read: no brainer).

[alexman]

Originally posted by BillChin
I think Monarchy, Republic and Democracy are already fairly well-balanced. Communism needs a boost.

I agree with this. Monarchy is still useful after the ancient age, especially for warmongerers, because they are often forced to switch to Monarchy due to war weariness.

Sir Ralph's suggestion hopefully doesn't unbalance Republic compared to Monarchy, but it all depends on whether you want to make drastic or minimal changes to the original rules.

I'm generally in favor of smaller changes in mods, so I like the solution of boosting Communism as opposed to weakening the other governments. I would suggest definitely doubling communist worker speed plus some other small change like increasing free units.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by player1
The point is that if you want large military and world conquest you should stay in Monarchy & Communism.

Why? Democracies are just as capable of supporting large militaries as other forms of government, actually more so. And the fact that in our world, the most powerful democracy's taste for expansion ended far short of world domination doesn't necessarily mean that another democracy in other circumstances would feel the same way.

In a situation like the real world where the major nations are all at roughly the same level of technology, it IS hard for a Democracy in Civ 3 to engage in large-scale warfare - so hard that more than a few players favor Republic in spite of Democracy's corruption advantages. And even a Republic can have major war weariness problems against an opponent with an equally large, equally modern military.

On the other hand, if you have a mismatch where a Democracy or Republic has modern armor, jet fighters, and mechanized infantry, and all the others just have unmotorized infantry and cavalry or maybe (if they're lucky) World War II style tanks, there is very little to deter the Democracy or Republic from voting to take over the world if that happens to be its whim. In Civ 3, if you want to fight a lot as a Democracy, achieving that kind of technological mismatch is important.

Nathan

[player1]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Why? Democracies are just as capable of supporting large militaries as other forms of government, actually more so. And the fact that in our world, the most powerful democracy's taste for expansion ended far short of world domination doesn't necessarily mean that another democracy in other circumstances would feel the same way.

Correct.
On the other hand, just being in Republic and Domcracy doesn't DOUBLE your gold and science output in real wolrd.
It's bigger, but not that much bigger.

But in this game...

So you have govemnet that can do all things well, and govemnet which is only good in long (15+ turns) war.

Which would you always choose?

In fact,
rep. & dem. trade bonus is the thing which is owerpowered in this game.

[player1]

Originally posted by alexman
I'm generally in favor of smaller changes in mods, so I like the solution of boosting Communism as opposed to weakening the other governments. I would suggest definitely doubling communist worker speed plus some other small change like increasing free units.

Me too, that why I didn't put this in my PS mod.
I put in in once nice vannila Civ3 BIC in this thread in order to have people here playtest it.

Hopefully, by giving them 2/3/4 free upkeep, would prevent 2gp per unit to be unbalanced.

[player1]

Higher_Upkeep.BIC update:

Now Republic and Democracy get 2/3/4 free units per town/city/metrop. (other units still need 2gp per unit)

This is done in oreder to make ancient and medivial Republic still a good choice.

With 2 free units, you could have 4 units per town and still have same upkeep as in vannila Civ3 Republic.

With 4 free units in metropolis, you could have 8 units per metrop. and still have same upkeep as in vannila Civ3 Republic (or Democ.)

But having destoyer armies would be a little bit probelmatic.

[player1]

-

[BillChin]

The change, 2/3/4 free units, and 2 gold per units additional seems to make Republic and Democracy stronger. Monarchy looks even weaker as a peace time government. Most human players that switch to Republic have 1 or 2 units per town/city, to deal with barbs or for safety. With free unit support, the gold advantage and tech advantage becomes even stronger for peace time Republic. Is that the desired result?

Again, my vote is against the mod. I don't have to play test it. I can see that with my play style, the new rules make Republic even stronger, Monarchy weaker. Democracy is still kind of weak because of excessive war weariness. Communism still looks next to useless.

Again, my proposal is to give a small boost to Communism (3/6/12 unit support or maybe even 4/8/16), and leave the other governments the same. Maybe add 1 free unit per city(0/1/2 unit support) for Democracy to make it worthwhile for non-religious civs to switch to Democracy and to give Democracy a slight gold advantage over Republic.

Under the default rules, many experienced players go for Republic and stay there the entire game. On higher levels the 7 to 10 turns of anarchy make further switching unwise. With the Universal Suffrage wonder, a player can stay in Republic, war or no war.

The mod seems to increase the tendency to Republic over Monarchy. Most players do not build a huge army under Republic. Two per town is plenty of units to launch a war, especially with Knights or Calvary vs. lesser defenders.
- Bill

[player1]

Originally posted by BillChin
The change, 2/3/4 free units, and 2 gold per units additional seems to make Republic and Democracy stronger. Monarchy looks even weaker as a peace time government. Most human players that switch to Republic have 1 or 2 units per town/city, to deal with barbs or for safety. With free unit support, the gold advantage and tech advantage becomes even stronger for peace time Republic. Is that the desired result?

Who knows,
Maybe it does needs to be tweaked a litle.
Maybe 1/2/3.
Or just 1/1/1

Originally posted by BillChin Again, my vote is against the mod. I don't have to play test it. I can see that with my play style, the new rules make Republic even stronger, Monarchy weaker. Democracy is still kind of weak because of excessive war weariness. Communism still looks next to useless.

I just hope somebody else will.
I added free units just in order not to make Republic bad choice fore moderate army.

Maybe I got too far.
Who knows.

Originally posted by BillChin
Again, my proposal is to give a small boost to Communism (3/6/12 unit support or maybe even 4/8/16), and leave the other governments the same. Maybe add 1 free unit per city(0/1/2 unit support) for Democracy to make it worthwhile for non-religious civs to switch to Democracy and to give Democracy a slight gold advantage over Republic.

That doesn't work.
As you said you can be pretty muich more effective with smaller army. So having even more free units for Communism won't help you.

On the other hand, you get much more gold, just being in Republic (trade bonus).

[nbarclay]

I actually agree that the gold bonus for Republic/Democracy is too big. If the gold advantage could be set to fractions, that would make it practical to address the problem directly. But I don't think upsetting the balance in other areas of the game is a good solution to the problem in that area.

With a unit support cost of 2, at 1/2/2 unit support or higher under Republic, players like myself who use Republic to research with a lean military would have a significantly bigger advantage than we do now. For that matter, even at 1/1/1 unit support, I'd probably come out ahead more often than not in the critical late ancient/early medieval period.

Conversely, at anything under 1/2/2, I strongly suspect that the implications for AI research could get nasty due to the relatively large standing armies AIs maintain. Try to compensate for that by giving the AIs extra free unit support and you give the AIs an extra advantage under Despotism, Monarchy, or Communism, and especially against human Republics that follow military stategies similar to what the AIs use.

So unless I'm missing something, what we end up with is a situation where either human civs that run a bare-bones military get a significant advantage or AI Republics are faced with a major disadvantage. I regard both of those possibilities as cures that are worse than the disease, even aside from my distaste for upsetting the balance among possible Republic-based strategies human players can choose from.

Nathan

[player1]

Originally posted by nbarclay
With a unit support cost of 2, at 1/2/2 unit support or higher under Republic, players like myself who use Republic to research with a lean military would have a significantly bigger advantage than we do now. For that matter, even at 1/1/1 unit support, I'd probably come out ahead more often than not in the critical late ancient/early medieval period.

Hmm...
Let's try with 1/2/2 for start, and then modify it after some platesting?

Originally posted by nbarclay
Conversely, at anything under 1/2/2, I strongly suspect that the implications for AI research could get nasty due to the relatively large standing armies AIs maintain. Try to compensate for that by giving the AIs extra free unit support and you give the AIs an extra advantage under Despotism, Monarchy, or Communism, and especially against human Republics that follow military stategies similar to what the AIs use.

By the way, at Monarch and higher levels, AI civs do get extra free units to support (look in editor diffculty settings).

Of course, there is a question, how does AI choose which govenment is better.
Does he know which govenment in the moment would give more gp/per turn?

Originally posted by nbarclay So unless I'm missing something, what we end up with is a situation where either human civs that run a bare-bones military get a significant advantage or AI Republics are faced with a major disadvantage. I regard both of those possibilities as cures that are worse than the disease, even aside from my distaste for upsetting the balance among possible Republic-based strategies human players can choose from.

Nathan

Yes, pretty probelmatic.
That's why I put it in BIC file for playtesting.

I don't know how much is it good, or how good AI is with it.

Still, don't forget.
If your military is weak, AI will attack you.


P.S.
I updated BIC file with 1/2/2 free suppot.

[player1]

Higher_Upkeep.BIC update (v1.11):

Now Republic and Democracy get 1/2/2 free units per town/city/metrop. (other units still need 2gp per unit)